Jennifer Koppenaal

I just wanted to praise God for this new life that He has given me and my family. We were all very lost. I grew up in the Baptist church and after I married we attended a Reformed church. Throughout my whole life, religion never made sense. It was drilled in my head "once saved always saved". From a very young age I would fear every night that if I died I would not go to heaven. I had no peace. I would pray everyday to be saved because there was something not right about what I was supposed to believe. I never made the connection between obedience and salvation because this was always left out. The preachers never told us that obedience was key, even though it's written all over the Bible. My mind was so focused on myself that I never sought out understanding what God wanted hard enough. This self-focus led me into being a very depressed, angry, and worried person. I would have thoughts of suicide often, but praise God I never did it because I was afraid I would go to hell, and I would have. I could not pull myself out of this pit of worry and depression that I created. I would think up situations in my head daily that would cause me to worry about things that never even happened and I would cry for hours. My depression was totally self-created. I also had uncontrollable rage, jealousy, and would even have thoughts of harming my children. My children were very unhappy. They had learned it from me. Before kindergarten my oldest son clearly had clinical signs of depression. We couldn't make him smile. It didn't matter if he just got a new toy. He would not smile and always looked as if he was about to cry. My 2nd son had extreme anger and would go into fits of rage that could not be calmed. This occurred daily and lasted anywhere from 1-2 hours where he would just scream for no apparent reason. He was only 3 years old. It was very scary and he definitely would have been misdiagnosed as bipolar. Our marriage was over and I was planning the details of how I was going to move out with 3 small children. My husband and I had no love for each other. We only loved ourselves above everything else, including the children and God. We had created financial upset by spending money that we didn't have. I used to have to write checks for groceries that I knew were not going to clear. In one year we had written at least 40 bad checks. We could not pay our monthly bills and had the collectors calling everyday. We were 2 weeks from having our house repossessed and praise God for not allowing that. We were also 1 week away from having a vehicle from being repossessed. Our parents had bailed us out many times financially and I'm certain they were quite disgusted with our behavior as well. I was extremely lazy and did not keep a decent house. Actually a barn was probably cleaner than our house was. We even had rats running through our dining room.

The longest losing battle I can remember was with my weight. It began in first grade when I was already wearing women's size clothes. I started trying to lose weight in about 5th or 6th grade. By junior high I was 180 pounds. During high school I had found that I could lose weight by not eating at all. That was easier for me than having any sort of self control over the amount of food I put in my body. For about 3 weeks I did not eat even one bite. The terrible thing about it was that I was so vain, I didn't care that my heart was skipping beats, was blacking out, and could have easily died. The reason I began eating again was because my hair was falling out. I didn't want to be fat and bald. So of course all the weight I had lost in 3 weeks (about 30 lbs.) came back on plus some. I was totally destroying my body between binging and starving. I had made myself hypoglycemic from eating huge amounts of sugar (entire box of Little Debbies in one sitting), and then my blood sugar would crash. I had to exercise all the time to keep the weight from coming on too quick. I would powerwalk 6 miles a day and still gain weight because of my extreme greed for food. My life had no purpose, yet this was my life as a "Christian". Completely the opposite of what God wanted. I praise God for showing me this truth that has set me free from the life I just described above. Gwen Shamblin and all of the leadership at Remnant Fellowship have guided me into how to have a relationship with God and made the words "the truth shall set you free" come alive in my life. They are truly led by the one and only God. They love the sheep more than themselves and it's obvious that they love God most of all by the lives they live. Their actions do line up with that of Jesus as they daily give up their wills. I could not get any help from the other church I attended. I had counseling sessions with them but they didn't have the answers. They were struggling with their own sin so much that they couldn't lead anyone else out. If the Great, Merciful, Loving God Almighty had not allowed me to understand the true meaning of Christianity I would be more lost than I was before. My marriage would have been over, but thanks to God working through the leaders at Remnant Fellowship my husband and I love each other deeply and our family is not the same. My kids smile now and my 2nd son has not had a fit of rage since putting this truth into practice. These occurred daily and once we started following God and obeying His desires, He immediately rewarded our family with taking all that anger in our little boy away. It was instant. Our 3rd son who was raised, since a baby, in this message of love and obedience to God, taught by the leaders at Remnant, has not had to go through the depression and anger that his 2 older brothers did. We can pay all our bills on time now and God has even allowed us to buy a house again and allowed me to attend nursing school. My husband's small business has been blessed as well and the bills can be paid on one income which is amazing in this day and time. I have no more depression, jealousy, and fits of rage. I can't imagine ever hurting my children. They are not mine. I'm so blessed that God has allowed me to care for "His" kids and raise them to serve Him. I don't obsessively exercise, binge, or starve myself anymore. I'm no longer hypoglycemic. There is self-control in my life. I don't allow my mind to wander around and worry about things that are ridiculous. My mind can stay focused on God's will. Thank you God and thank you Remnant Fellowship for showing me that following the heavenly Father's commands is the only way to live for now and eternity!!!